Arriving at the Second-Magnitude Star, Firelight Star

In the cold, boundless cosmos, a battered starship hurtled along a waterway paved with divine runes at an extraordinary speed.

You were aboard this starship, drinking plain rice porridge.

When you boarded, your hands were empty.

Were it not for the "Unlimited Rice Porridge" trait, you would have either starved to death or died of thirst.

Watching the starlight streak past outside the starship, you were flooded with emotion.

"On Earth in my past life, people yearned desperately for interstellar travel, but here it's achieved with such ease. The path of cultivation truly is superior..."

Though the ship traveled on this rune-waterway, moving at a speed beyond reason, spanning the grand scale of distances between planets.

The voyage still took years as its unit of measure.

After all, the starship left behind by Old Master Zhang was only the most basic kind—just barely sufficient for interstellar travel.

Even after you reinforced it, that only elevated it from dead last to second-to-last.

Still, considering that the Qi Transformation stage wasn't exactly rare in the Material Realm.

And starting from Qi Transformation, the lifespan of every race increased; after the seventh turn of Qi Transformation, for humans, one could reach a thousand years of life.

So a voyage of a few years or even a decade or two wasn't much of a burden to cultivators above the Qi Transformation stage.

"Why does it feel like there's immortal energy along this waterway?"

During moments of boredom, you tried cultivating and discovered that in the void of space, you could actually capture traces of immortal energy.

Faint though it was, it wasn't enough to sustain cultivation at your current realm, but compared to Blessing Star, which had absolutely none, at least here there was a little—enough to slowly replenish your true qi.

"A third-rate star has no immortal energy at all, yet the vast emptiness of space has a bit? Does that even make sense..."

Year eighteen. You were forty-two.

Every morning upon waking, you touched your current appearance.

Sometimes you had an extra tail, sometimes an extra head, sometimes no eyes at all.

"Martin's Mornings" gifted you new surprises every day, greeting you with a brand-new self.

But the changes were only skin-deep; your racial talents, cultivation, combat power, and techniques remained entirely unchanged.

Year nineteen. Forty-three.

Still voyaging...

Year twenty. Forty-four.

Still voyaging...

This life where you could go nowhere was utterly stifling.

Yet every time you thought of everything the humans on Blessing Star had given for your escape, you felt unworthy of melancholy.

Upon you rested their hope for freedom, their vision of breaking free from the brutal rule of alien races.

You had no idea whether you'd ever have the chance in this lifetime to return to Blessing Star and truly settle their debt, changing the fate of its human race.

But you hoped to do what you could.

If it truly proved impossible, there was always the next life—you had a fairly relaxed outlook on that.

Sometimes you used the "Proficiency" trait to further elevate your mastery of the Divine Weapon Revelation.

Sometimes you scribbled and sketched aboard the starship, delving into formations, alchemy, artifact forging, and the ways of incense and faith.

Over the years, your mastery of the Divine Weapon Revelation improved dramatically, and the starship soon became covered in your doodles, looking like an abstract piece of street mural art.

One day, the starship suddenly came to a halt.

Among the ship's core formations, one set activated during deceleration, sparing you the shock of the sudden stop and ensuring you wouldn't be thrown forward.

You peered out through the porthole and saw a planet roughly the same size as Blessing Star, but with a faint reddish tint across its surface.

"So this is Flame Light Star," you murmured.

Finally, you had arrived at your destination. You nearly wept for joy.

No more endless rice porridge every day.

You spotted a massive pillar of rainbow-colored light rising from the planet's surface.

The beam surely came from Flame Light Star's spaceport.

You guided your starship into the light column, and a tugging force latched onto the ship, slowly pulling it down toward the ground.

At the same time, you noticed more starships in the surrounding space moving into the beam, descending alongside you toward Flame Light Star.

These ships came in all shapes—most were vessel-shaped.

Others took the form of carriages, sedan chairs, and even hawk-shaped designs with outstretched wings that resembled aircraft.

The spaceport on Flame Light Star was far busier.

Probably because this was a second-rate star with a large number of cultivators, so people swarmed about.

The port's light beam illuminated every vessel, and when they drew close, you could make out the beings inside the other ships.

Not a single human.

All sorts of motley alien races.

You had no idea what race you happened to be today, but with two horns jutting from your head, you certainly weren't human.

Not being human was a good thing—it saved you trouble upon landing.

"Martin's Mornings" sometimes turned you into a human, but with a different face.

If you were human today, you'd have chosen to stay on the ship a bit longer, waiting until your appearance shifted to something non-human before disembarking.

The inky blackness of space receded, and a sky tinged with pale red light met your eyes.

Slipping through the clouds, falling steadily downward, until a soft bump signaled the landing—your battered, broken starship had touched ground at last.

The main structure of Flame Light Star's spaceport was nearly identical to Blessing Star's—an enormous and complex formation requiring many hands to sustain.

Here too, there were heavily armed guards, alert, patrolling ceaselessly.

The outer ring of Flame Light Star's spaceport was far more bustling than Blessing Star's.

A ring-shaped city surrounded the giant spaceport formation, crowded with people, brightly lit, and filled with rising cooking smoke.

The buildings were mostly stone, typically two or three stories, with a few taller structures resembling watchtowers or castle turrets.

The architectural style was rich with exotic flair, unlike the classical Eastern elegance you knew from the human world.

You followed the example of all the other disembarking passengers, queuing under the direction of the guards for inspection.

You guessed the process was similar to customs at a border checkpoint.

While waiting in line, you saw two humans dragged out.

They had descended with an alien ship, concealed under disguises meant to pass as other races—but the inspectors had seen through their tricks.

Their coverings were ripped off harshly, and the two were pinned to the ground by a host of soldiers who rushed over.

Their armored, muscular legs pressed heavily against the prisoners' necks.

"Throw these stowaway humans into prison!"

So it seemed the human situation here wasn't great either—otherwise, why would these people risk disguise and infiltration?